Generalizing about Genre - Florida State University

Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept
Author(s): Amy J. Devitt
Source: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Dec., 1993), pp. 573-586
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
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Generalizing about Genre:
New Conceptions of an Old Concept
Amy J. Devitt
Our field has become riddled with dichotomies that threaten to undermine our
holistic understanding of writing. Form and content (and the related form and
function, text and context), product and process, individual and society-these
dichotomies too often define our research affiliations, our pedagogies, and our
theories. If we are to understand writing as a unified act, as a complex whole,
we must find ways to overcome these dichotomies. Recent conceptions of genre
as a dynamic and semiotic construct illustrate how to unify form and content,
place text within context, balance process and product, and acknowledge the
role of both the individual and the social. This reconception of genre may even
lead us to a unified theory of writing.
The most recent understandings of genre derive from the work of several
significant theorists working with different agendas and from different fields:
from literature (M. M. Bakhtin, Tzvetan Todorov, Jacques Derrida), linguistics
(M. A. K. Halliday, John Swales), and rhetoric (Carolyn Miller, Kathleen
Jamieson). However, this work has not yet widely influenced how most scholars
and teachers of writing view genre. Our reconception will require releasing old
notions of genre as form and text type and embracing new notions of genre as
dynamic patterning of human experience, as one of the concepts that enable us
to construct our writing world. Basically, the new conception of genre shifts the
focus from effects (formal features, text classifications) to sources of those
effects. To accommodate our desires for a reunified view of writing, we must
shift our thinking about genre from a formal classification system to a rhetorical
and essentially semiotic social construct. This article will explain the new
conception of genre that is developing and will suggest some effects of this new
conception on our thinking about writing.1
The Conventional Conception of Genre
The common understanding of genre among too many composition scholars
and teachers today is that genre is a relatively trivial concept, a classification
Amy J. Devitt is associate professor of English at the University of Kansas and, beginning in
January 1994, Director of Freshman-Sophomore English. She teaches courses in composition
theory, writing, and the English language. Her publications include Standardizing WrittenEnglish
and articles on genre and professional writing. She is currently completing a book manuscript,
Writing Genres.
College Composition
and Communication,
Vol. 44, No. 4, December
1993
573
574
CollegeCompositionand Communication44 (December1993)
system deriving from literary criticism that names types of texts according to
their forms. Viewed in this way, genre is not only a rather trivial concept but
also a potentially destructive one, one that conflicts with our best understandings of how writing, writers, and readers work, one that encourages the
dichotomies in our field.
Treating genre as form requires dividing form from content, with genre as
the form into which content is put; but we have largely rejected this container
model of meaning in favor of a more integrated notion of how meaning is made:
"Form and content in discourse are one," as Bakhtin writes ("Discourse" 259).
Similarly, treating genre as form and text type requires binding genre to a
product perspective, without effect on writing processes or, worse yet, inhibiting those processes. As a product-based concept, in fact, this view of genre
seems to have more to do with reading than with writing (as attested to by the
frequency of genre interpretations among literary critics). Finally, a formal view
of genre exaggerates one of the most troubling current dichotomies, that between the individual and the group or society. It makes genre a normalizing and
static concept, a set of forms that constrain the individual; genuine writers can
distinguish themselves only by breaking out of those generic constraints, by
substituting an individual genius for society's bonds.
Though this conventional conception of genre contradicts our best knowledge of how writing works, it has a long history and is not so easily discarded.
Formalisms in general have sustained much of the work in linguistics, rhetoric,
and literature in the past, the fields out of which genre theories have developed.
Not surprisingly, then, most genre theories in the past have been concerned
with classification and form, with describing the formal features of a particular
genre, describing the embodiment of a genre in a particularwork, or delineating
a genre system, a set of classifications of (primarily literary) texts. The emphasis
on classification can be traced back to the followers of Aristotle, who turned his
initial treatment in the Poeticsof the epic, tragedy, and comedy into an infinitely
modifiable classification scheme. The rhetorical division of discourse into
epideictic, judicial, and deliberative can be seen as a similar classification system, one still in use by some today. Other writers propose broader or narrower
schemes of text types: literature and nonliterature; narrative and nonnarrative;
narrative, exposition, argument, description; the lyric, the sonnet; the Petrarchan sonnet. Whether called genres, subgenres, or modes, whether comprehensive or selective, whether generally accepted or disputed, these systems for
classifying texts focus attention on static products.
The efforts spent on devising a classification scheme may be time well spent
for some purposes: for supporting or elaborating an interpretation of literature
(that literature'simport is its effect on readers, for example, or that all literature
tells stories), or, to use Anne Freadman'sexamples (106), for developing a filing
system, a library classification system, or disciplinary divisions within a university. For our purposes, perhaps it is enough to agree with Todorov that "We do
not know just how many types of discourse there are, but we shall readily agree
Generalizingabout Genre:New Conceptionsof an Old Concept
575
that there are more than one" (9). Or, along with Miller, perhaps we can accept
that "the number of genres current in any society is indeterminate and depends
upon the complexity and diversity of the society" (163). Understanding genre
requires understanding more than just classification schemes; it requires understanding the origins of the patterns on which those classifications are based. As
I. R. Titunik comments in summarizing P. M. Medvedev's ideas about genre,
"Genre is not that which is determined and defined by the components of a
literary work or by sets of literary works, but that which, in effect, determines
and defines them" (175).
Once our attention shifts to the origins of genres, it also shifts away from
their formal features. Traditional genre study has meant study of the textual
features that mark a genre: the meter, the layout, the organization, the level
of diction, and so on. Where literary criticism has delineated its invocation to
the muse and its fourteen-line sonnet, composition has delineated its fiveparagraph theme, the inverted-triangle introductory paragraph, the division
into purpose, methods, results, and discussion of the lab report, and the
you-attitude in the business letter. Certainly, such formal features are the physical markings of a genre, its traces, and hence may be quite revealing. In merging
form and content, we do not wish to discard the significance of form in genre
(see Coe, "Apology"). But those formal traces do not define or constitute
the genre (see Freadman 114). Historical changes in generic forms argue
against equating genre with form; note the formal changes in what we call a
poem, for example, or in the familiar letter. The forms may change but the
generic label stays the same. Distinguishing definitive from insignificant forms
has proven troublesome, perhaps possible only after the fact. More importantly,
equating genre with form is tenable only within the container model of
meaning. By integrating form and content within situation and context, recent work in genre theory makes genre an essential player in the making of
meaning.
To begin seeing how much more than classification or textual form genre
comprehends, consider what we know when, as readers,we recognize the genre
of a text. Based on our identification of genre, we make assumptions not only
about the form but also about the text's purposes, its subject matter, its writer,
and its expected reader.If I open an envelope and recognize a sales letter in my
hand, I understand that a company will make a pitch for its product and want
me to buy it. Once I recognize that genre, I will throw the letter away or scan
it for the product it is selling. If, in a different scenario, I open an envelope and
find a letter from a friend, I understand immediately a different set of purposes
and a different relationship between writer and reader, and I respond/read
accordingly. What I understand about each of these letters and what I reflect in
my response to them is much more than a set of formal features or textual
conventions. Our theory of genre, therefore, must allow us to see behind
particular classifications (which change as our purposes change) and forms
(which trace but do not constitute genre). Genre entails purposes, participants,
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CollegeCompositionand Communication44 (December1993)
and themes, so understanding genre entails understanding a rhetorical and
semiotic situation and a social context.
New Conceptions of Genre
To develop our new genre theory, we begin with rhetorical situation and expand
it to encompass a semiotic situation and social context. One major strain of
recent genre theory which connects genre to purposes, participants, and themes
derives from the notion of genre as response to recurring rhetorical situation.
In particular, Miller defines genres as "typified rhetorical actions based in
recurrent situations" (159). Although potentially deriving from Aristotle or
Burke, the connection of genre to rhetorical situation has been most frequently
drawn from the 1968 work of Lloyd Bitzer. In his elaborate exploration of
rhetorical situation, Bitzer refers to what happens when situations recur:
Due to eitherthe natureof things or convention,or both, some situations
recur.... From day to day, year to year, comparablesituations occur,
promptingcomparableresponses;hence rhetoricalforms are born and a
special vocabulary,grammar,and style are established.. . The situation
recursand, becausewe experiencesituationsand the rhetoricalresponseto
them, a formof discourseis not only establishedbut comesto havea power
of its own-the traditionitself tends to function as a constraintupon any
new responsein the form. (13)
Genres develop, then, because they respond appropriately to situations that
writers encounter repeatedly.In principle, that is, writers first respond in fitting
ways and hence similarly to recurring situations; then, the similarities among
those appropriate responses become established as generic conventions. In practice, of course, genres already exist and hence already constrain responses to
situations. Genre's efficiency and appropriateness appear clearly in a relatively
fixed genre like the lab report: its particularpurposes and reader'sneeds can best
be met by its formal features-such as a quick statement of purpose or separate
methods and results sections. If all writers of lab reports use these forms, then
all lab reports will respond in some appropriate ways to the needs of their
situation. Even a more loosely defined genre reveals the appropriateness of
generic conventions to situation. The opening of a letter to a friend, for
example, just like all our everyday greetings, signals affection and maintains
contact, whether the standard "Hi! How are you?" or a more original nod to the
relationship. The features that genres develop respond appropriately to their
situations.
If each writing problem were to require a completely new assessment of how
to respond, writing would be slowed considerably. But once we recognize a
recurring situation, a situation that we or others have responded to in the past,
our response to that situation can be guided by past responses. Genre, thus,
depends heavily on the intertextuality of discourse. As Bakhtin points out in his
Generalizingabout Genre:New Conceptionsof an Old Concept
577
important essay on speech genres, a speaker "is not, after all, the first speaker,
the one who disturbs the eternal silence of the universe" (69). The fact that
others have responded to similar situations in the past in similar ways-the fact
that genres exist-enables us to respond more easily and more appropriately
ourselves. Knowing the genre, therefore, means knowing such things as appropriate subject matter, level of detail, tone, and approach as well as the usual
layout and organization. Knowing the genre means knowing not only, or even
most of all, how to conform to generic conventions but also how to respond
appropriately to a given situation.
This straightforward connection of genre to recurring situation begins but
does not complete our understanding of genre's origins, for recent theory has
expanded the notion of situation. Bitzer's definition of the rhetorical situation
has come under attack (see, for example, Vatz; Consigny), and his requirement
of a narrowly defined rhetorical exigence as a main component of situation has
been troublesome for more wide-ranging composition theory. Based on a fuller
range of language behavior, B. Malinowski's concepts of context of situation and
context of culture have been developed by M. A. K. Halliday and others (see,
especially, Halliday and Hasan), and this conception offers perhaps the best
contemporary understanding of situation. Specifically, as Halliday defines it,
situation consists of a field (roughly, what is happening), a tenor (who is
involved), and a mode (what role language is playing) (31-35). Those components of situation determine what Halliday calls "register,"essentially the linguistic equivalent to what I and many of his followers, including Hasan, have
called "genre." Like so many other important concepts in Halliday's system,
register/genre is a semantic as well as functional concept. He defines it as "the
configuration of semantic resources that the member of a culture typically
associates with a situation type. It is the meaning potential that is accessible in
a given social context" (111). Halliday's definition associates genre/register with
situation type and the making of meaning, the most important elements of our
reconception of genre so far. It keeps genre as a semantic and functional
concept.
Even with a more comprehensive definition of situation, one problem remains with our treatment of genre as response to recurringsituation: where does
the "situation"come from? In light of recent nonfoundational philosophy and
social construction, I would suggest that our construction of genre is what helps
us to construct a situation. Genre not only responds to but also constructs
recurring situation.
Context, often seen as the larger frame of situation, has long been a troubling
concept for linguists and rhetoricians because, among other reasons, it is difficult to specify what context includes. Not everything about the surrounding
environment (the temperature, what is happening in the next block) is relevant
for the language use being considered, and some things outside the surrounding
environment (potential readers, previous texts) are relevant. The concepts of
context of situation and context of culture were devised in part to deal with this
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problem of framing. Yet, if the context of situation is not a physical fact of the
surrounding environment, as it clearly is not, where does it come from? Today's
answerwould be that writers and readersconstruct it. Halliday and Hasan come
close to this perspective when they write, "Any piece of text, long or short,
spoken or written, will carry with it indications of its context. . . . This means
that we reconstruct from the text certain aspects of the situation, certain
features of the field, the tenor, and the mode. Given the text, we construct the
situation from it" (38). In fact, the situation may exist only as writers and
readers construct it. As Miller writes, "Situations are social constructs that are
the result, not of 'perception,' but of 'definition'" (156), or what Halliday would
call semiotic structures. Even more clearly, the recurrence of situation cannot
be a material fact but rather what Miller calls "an intersubjective phenomenon,
a social occurrence" (156).
We do not construct the situation directly through the text, however; rather,
we reach the situation through the genre. Since genre responds to recurring
situation, a text's reflection of genre indirectly reflects situation. Thus the act of
constructing the genre-of creating or perceiving the formal traces of a genreis also the act of constructing the situation. As discussed earlier, when we as
readersrecognize the genre of a particular text, we recognize, through the genre,
its situation. Like readers,writers also construct situation by constructing genre.
A writer faced with a writing task confronts multiple contexts and must define
a specific context in relation to that task (teachers tells writers to "figure out
who your audience is" or "stateyour purpose"). By selecting a genre to write in,
or by beginning to write within a genre, the writer has selected the situation
entailed in that genre. The assignment may ask for a letter to the editor, but the
writer who begins with an inverted-triangle introduction is still writing for the
teacher.
Writers and readers may, of course, mix genres and situations and may use
genres badly. Consider, for example, what happens when writers or readers
match genre and situation differently. A writer may try to vary the situationsay by treating the audience as a friend in a formal scholarly article-but the
readers will likely note a change in the genre (either noting a flawed text that
violates the genre or concluding that the writer is changing the genre). Similarly, a writer who shifts genre in the middle of a text causes confusion for the
reader, not because the reader cannot label the genre but because the reader
cannot be sure of the writer'spurpose or the reader'srole-cannot be sure of the
situation. For a final example, a readerwho "misreads"a text's genre-who reads
"AModest Proposal"as a serious proposal, say-most significantly misreads the
situation as well. Genre and situation are so linked as to be inseparable, but it
is genre that determines situation as well as situation that determines genre.
If genre not only responds to but also constructs recurring situation, then
genre must be a dynamic rather than static concept. Genres construct and
respond to situation; they are actions (see Miller). As our constructions of
situations change and new situations begin to recur, genres change and new
Generalizingabout Genre:New Conceptionsof an Old Concept
579
genres develop. Since situation is inherently a social as well as rhetorical concept, genres change with society, as Gunther Kress explains:
If genre is entirely imbricatedin other social processes,it follows that
unlesswe view society itself as static, then neithersocial structures,social
processes,nor thereforegenresare static. Genresare dynamic,responding
to the dynamicsof other parts of social systems. Hence genres change
historically;hence new genres emerge over time, and hence, too, what
appearsas 'the same' generic form at one level has recognizablydistinct
formsin differingsocial groups.(42)
Dynamic genres are also fluid rather than rigid, are possible responses that
writers choose and even combine to suit their situations. "The wealth and
diversity of speech genres are boundless," Bakhtin writes, "because the various
possibilities of human activity are inexhaustible, and because each sphere of
activity contains an entire repertoire of speech genres that differentiate and
grow as the particular sphere develops and becomes more complex" ("Problem"
60). The connection to social spheres and groups has led some to tie genre to
the constructions of a discourse community, a promising connection developed
most fruitfully by John Swales in his 1990 book on genre. Whether through
discourse communities or some other social frame, genre must respond dynamically to human behavior and social changes.
One concern that has been raised in the past is that genre can become
deterministic. Especially for such a social view of genre as this, some worry that
the individual writer no longer matters. The split between the individual and
society, however, is another false dichotomy that our new conception of genre
can help to resolve. Denigrating genre became popular with the glorification of
the individual, a romantic strain in literary criticism that considers genre and
previous texts as constraints, as something that great writers must transcend, as
producing anxiety for the writer. Yet an opposing trend has seen the inherent
intertextuality of all writing, has discerned that T. S. Eliot's "historical sense"
enriches rather than constrains the individual writer. Writers work creatively
within the frame of past texts and given genres just as they work within the
frame of a given language.
It is indeed true that "the single utterance, with all its individuality and
creativity, can in no way be regarded as a completelyfree combinationof forms of
language" (Bakhtin, "Problem"81). Genres are existing and somewhat normative constructs, some more rigid than others, but so too are all language forms.
All language constrains the individual to the extent that language is an existing
set of forms; however, as Bakhtin points out, "Speech genres are much more
changeable, flexible, and plastic than language forms are" ("Problems" 80).
Language and genre constrain but do not eliminate the individual writer. As
constituents of society, individuals create language and create genre. Being part
of society enables individuals to change society, and hence to change genres, for
genres, as Volosinov/Bakhtin writes, "exhibit an extraordinarysensitivity to all
fluctuations in the social atmosphere" (20). Individuals may, of course, combine
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different genres or may "violate"the norms of an existing genre, thereby confirming that genre's existence and potentially changing it. (See discussions in
Todorov, Derrida, and Freadman.) Working within existing genres as well,
individuals choose and create: even the most rigid genre requires some choices,
and the more common genres contain substantial flexibility within their
bounds. Ultimately, as Frances Christie writes in her article "Genres as Choice,"
"Capacity to recognise, interpret and write genres is capacity to exercise choice"
(32). Individuals choose within linguistic and generic conventions, and they
create and recreate the society that those conventions reflect. Although genre
thus is a social concept and construct, it also clarifies the nature of individual
choices. Again, genre proves the dichotomy false.
In sum, genre is a dynamic response to and construction of recurring situation, one that changes historically and in different social groups, that adapts
and grows as the social context changes. This new conception of genre has
managed to overcome several dichotomies in our understanding of language use
and writing. In reuniting genre and situation, it reunites text and context, each
constructing and responding to the other in a semiotic interchange. Form and
function are both inherent in genre, as are form and content. Miller explains
that genre semiotically fuses the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. Sigmund
Ongstad has genre fusing the form, content, and function. Genre is both the
product and the process that creates it. Genre is what Bakhtin calls "the whole
of the utterance" ("Problem"60), a unity and a unifier.
This new conception of genre helps us to see how individual writers and
individual texts work, then, by removing us one level from the individual and
particular.Genre is an abstraction or generality once removed from the concrete
or particular.Not as abstractas Saussuriannotions of langueor language system,
genre mediates between langue and parole, between the language and the utterance. Not as removed as situation, genre mediates between text and context.
Not as general as meaning, genre mediates between form and content. Genre is
patterns and relationships, essentially semiotic ones, that are constructed when
writers and groups of writers identify different writing tasks as being similar.
Genre constructs and responds to recurring situation, becoming visible through
perceived patterns in the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features of particular texts. Genre is truly, therefore, a maker of meaning.
Implications
So what does such a reconception of genre do for us as composition scholars
and teachers? For our scholarship, a new conception of genre might fill some
significant gaps in our existing theories of writing.2 We have already seen how
genre can help us to reintegrate several dichotomies in our view of writing. Most
particular to genre theory might be the better reintegration of form with
content and of text with context, the former a longstanding marriage we still
Generalizingabout Genre:New Conceptionsof an Old Concept
581
struggle to explain to others, the latter a more recent split whose divorce we are
just beginning to contest. Can we speak of context apart from text? Contexts
are always textualized. Through genre we can speak of both, as do many scholars
who study particular genres in particular communities (such as Bazerman and
Myers, in their studies of the experimental article in science and articles in
biology, respectively). Studies of particular genres and of particular genre sets
(as, for example, the research-processgenres in Swales, or the genre sets of tax
accountants in Devitt, "Intertextuality") can reveal a great deal about the
communities which construct and use those genres, and studies of particular
texts within those genres can reveal a great deal about the choices writers make.
The reintegration of product and process that this new genre theory enables
can clarify the value of studying products or texts, but it also can contribute to
our understanding of process and text-making. Some of the longstanding (and
often unspoken) questions about writing processes can be addressed through
considering genre's role. Two such questions will illustrate: Where do writers'
goals come from? How do writers know what to change when they are revising?
One of the classic articles on writing processes, Linda Flower and John
Hayes's 1981 article "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing," might have had
a different emphasis had a better understanding of genre been well shared when
it was written. Flower and Hayes concentrated in part on how writers generate
and regenerategoals. In one paragraph,they acknowledge a small role for genre:
but we shouldnot forgetthat manywritinggoalsarewell-learned,standard
ones stored in memory.For example,we would expect many writersto
drawautomaticallyon those goals associatedwith writingin general,such
as, "interestthe reader,"or "startwith an introduction,"or on goals associatedwith a given genre,such as makinga jingle rhyme.These goalswill
often be so basic that they won't even be consciouslyconsideredor expressed.And the more experiencedthe writerthe greaterthis repertoryof
semi-automaticplansand goalswill be. (381)
With our new conception of genre, we would agree that "well-learned, standard" goals are "so basic that they won't even be consciously considered or
expressed," and that more experienced writers will be well-stocked with "semiautomatic plans and goals." However, rather than being uninteresting because
unconscious and rather than being trivial ("such as making a jingle rhyme"),
these "basic" and "well-learned" generic goals may be the stuff of which all
writing goals (at least partly) are made. Bakhtin ("Problem"), for example,
describes "primary"speech genres, which are the culturally established building
blocks of more complex "secondary"genres, most written genres being secondary genres. To understand the situational and social constructs behind such
primary and secondary genres may be to understand more deeply the goals that
writers have and the forces at work in their generation and regeneration.
Understanding writing processes, then, must include understanding generic
goals: what they are-the historical, community, and rhetorical forces that
shape them-how writers learn them, and how writers use them.
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CollegeCompositionand Communication44 (December1993)
Similarly, a better understanding of genre may help us understand better how
writers know when and what to revise. As an important part of revision, scholars
have described the perception of dissonance, between intention and text or
between intention and execution (see, for example, Sommers; and Flower and
Hayes). But James Reither asserts that "Composition studies does not seriously
attend... to the knowing without which cognitive dissonance is impossible"
(142). A large part of that "knowing" must be knowing genres. How, Flower
and her coauthors ask, "canwe say that a writer detects a dissonance or a failed
comparison between text and intention when the second side of the equation,
an 'ideal' or 'correct' or intended text doesn't exist-when there is no template
to 'match' the current text against?"(27). Genre might provide at least part of
that template, might provide at least part of the writer's notion of the ideal text.
If a writer has chosen to write a particular genre, then the writer has chosen a
template, a situation and an appropriate reflection of that situation in sets of
forms.3 In revising, a writer may check the situation and forms of the evolving
text against those of the chosen genre: where there is a mismatch, there is
dissonance. Genre by no means solves the problem of determining why writers
revise what they do; but without genre a complete solution to the problem is
impossible.
As these brief discussions of goals and dissonance illustrate, studies of writing
processes and cognitive perspectives on writing must take genre into account.
In fact, researchersmost interested in the cognition of individual writers can
make essential contributions to genre theory by studying how writers learn and
use a variety of genres. The creation, transmission, and modification of genres
can be studied further by those most interested in social and rhetorical perspectives on writing.
As mentioned earlier, many scholars studying nonacademic discourse have
used genre as a variable, even as a controlling concept for understanding
the community. In my study of tax accountants' writing ("Intertextuality"),
for example, understanding the group's values, assumptions, and beliefs is enhanced by understanding the set of genres they use, their appropriate situations
and formal traits, and what those genres mean to them. Swales develops the
fullest and most complex treatment of genre'srelationship to discourse communities in his important book GenreAnalysis. His significant work embedding
genre in discourse communities can be extended and developed by others, if we
can resolve such discourse-community issues as the nature of the community,
overlapping communities, and writers participating in multiple communities.
In fact, the same kind of semiotic interchange that is so useful for understanding genre may help us to understand discourse community. Just as genres construct situations and situations construct genres, discourse may
construct communities and communities construct discourse. Thus, rather than
looking at human membership to define community, perhaps discourse membership-that is, genre sets-can better define the nature and constitution of a
discourse community, just as the community better defines the nature of the
discourse.
Generalizingabout Genre:New Conceptionsof an Old Concept
583
As someone who has been working on understanding genre for many years,
of
I, course, see the potential benefits of genre in virtually every article or book
I read on composition theory and teaching. Studies of the relationship between
reading and writing need to acknowledge that genre connects readers and
writers, both their products and their processes, and need to investigate how
their interpretations of genre vary (or do not). Research on assessment and on
assignments needs to consider the power of differing generic demands to influence results. Judith A. Langer, for example, found that "genredistinctions were
stronger than grade distinctions in their effects on student writing" (167).
Researchersof basic writing need to go beyond the forms of academic genres to
see their situational constructs, with ideologies and roles that may pose conflicts
for some basic writers. A study of Athabaskans, a group of Alaskan Indians,
discussed by Michael B. Prince, found that learning to write a new genre
"implied cultural and personal values that conflicted with pre-existing patterns
of thought and behavior" (741). Christie goes so far as to assert that "Those
who fail in schools are those who fail to master the genres of schooling: the ways
of structuring and of dealing with experience which schools value in varying
ways" ("Language"24).
Although it may be premature to outline full programs, many powerful
revolutions in our teaching might develop from a better understanding of genre.
Teachers of writing need to discover how to teach novices the situations and
forms of the genres they will need without undermining the wholeness of a
genre. Aviva Freedman'sresearch suggests that some novices may learn to write
particular genres without explicit instruction, even ignoring explicit feedback.
Richard M. Coe, on the other hand, argues for making all such models conscious "so that we may use them critically instead of habitually" ("Rhetoric"
11). Research needs to be done to discover the most effective techniques of
translating our better genre theory into better writing instruction and thence
into practice.
Even as we await more substantial knowledge of how novices can best learn
and use genres, we can use the new conception of genre to improve our
teaching, especially our diagnosis and treatment of students' problems. Since
the genre constructs the situation, students will not be able to respond appropriately to assigned situations unless they know the appropriate genre. What we
often diagnose as ignorance of a situation or inability to imagine themselves in
another situation may in fact be ignorance of a genre or inability to write a genre
they have not sufficiently read: they may feel great love but be unable to write
a love sonnet. Conversely, since genre and situation are mutually constructive,
what we diagnose as inability to write a particular genre may in fact be unfamiliarity with the genre's situation: students may know the genre of letters to
the editor in a superficial way, but if they have never felt the need to write such
a letter-if they have never experienced the situation-they may be incapable
of writing one that appropriately responds to that situation. When we create
assignments and as we evaluate responses to them, we must consider both their
situational and generic demands.
584
CollegeCompositionand Communication44 (December1993)
Once we acknowledge genre as more than a formal constraint on writers but
rather an essential component of making meaning, we might find it influencing
other notions that we teach. Prewriting and revising processes probably differ
for different genres, since those genres represent different situations, including
constraints. Certainly, teaching students how to define their audiences and
purposes would change under a new notion of genre since it would be clear that
selecting a genre would automatically narrow the possibilities for audience and
purpose; conversely, wanting to address a particular audience and purpose
constrains one's choice of genre. Newly conceived genres should, of course,
serve the final death notice to the modes as a classification system. Even usage
standards might be most clearly explained through genre, as sets of language
forms that are a small part of the larger conventions of some genres deriving
from particular situations. Depending on our individual theories of writing and
teaching, we may still value originality above all, or self-expression, or clarity,
or correctness; but we may no longer ignore the fact that genre operates as a
force on our students as they try to meet our expectations.
In spite of what my genre-colored glasses show me, genre may not be the
answer to all of our dilemmas in composition theory and teaching. But only by
ignoring what writers themselves recognize can we ignore the significance of
genre. This new theory of genre reveals and explains the centrality of genre to
writing, its importance to understanding how writers and writing work. It also
suggests how we might develop an integrated, unified theory of writing. With
a unified theory of genre, we can reintegrate text and context, form and content,
process and product, reading and writing, individual and social. In the end,
genre's ability to capture both form and situation, both constraint and choice,
may capture the essence of writing as well.
Notes
1. This article was supported in part by the University of Kansas general research allocation #3629-0038. I would like to thank those who gave me many helpful comments on an
earlier draft of this article: Richard Coe, Aviva Freedman, James Hartman, Michael Johnson,
Pat McQueeney, and the anonymous readers for CCC.
2. See Devitt, "Genre" for a discussion of the implications of a new genre theory for the
study of language.
3. The notion of genre as template might be indebted to schemata theory and script
theory. These theories, as rich as they are for understanding the complexities of human
conventions, may have been a necessary precursor to this understanding of generic conventions.
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The National Council of Teachers of English joins the NCTE Black Caucus in
sponsoring the FIFTHNATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN READ-IN CHAINon Sunday,
February 6, 1994, at 4:00 p.m. EST, and on Monday, February 7, 1994, for
schools. Schools, community and professional organizations, businesses,
churches, libraries, bookstores, and interested citizens are urged to make literacy
a significant part of Black History Month by hosting and coordinating Read-Ins
in their communities. For more information about this and future Read-Ins,
contact Dr. Jerrie C. Scott, Central State University, Urban Literacy-Lower
Library, Wilberforce, OH 45384 (513-376-6535); or Dr. Sandra E. Gibbs,
NCTE Special Programs, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096
(217-328-3870, Ext. 230).